


Touches of Home

by ReaperWriter



Series: Mansion House Nocturnes [3]
Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Civil War, F/M, Morning, Phoster, Slice of Life, fall - Freeform, quiet moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:13:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6174343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quiet moment in the middle of a war between two early risers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touches of Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BroadwayBaggins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BroadwayBaggins/gifts).



> I actually drabbled this up in response to a meme. Then the Tumblr ask box character limited me. Bah! So, here instead.

They are both of them early risers.  It had not been obvious, at first, in the insanity and bustle that was Mansion House at all hours.  But there has been a lull in the fighting as late fall had come on.  A break in the constant flood of casualties that meant that there was a real chance for the staff to get sleep.

It’s somewhat foggy in the early hours around dawn, cool and damp when Mary steps out onto the second floor veranda of the building, a hot mug of tea in her hand.  She misses coffee, most days, but there was precious little real coffee to be had, and though her title as the Dowager Baroness sounded grand, she had no great treasury to back it up, and no wish to suffer the indignities of chicory.  No, strong black tea will do, sent as a gift in a care package from her brother Ned in Boston.

So focuses on the quiet, and the stillness, wishing it smelled more like home, that wet loam smell of fallen leaves that marked the start of the season.  She closes her eyes, thinking of the riot of colors she would see in Boston, or better, happier, in Manchester.

“Where have you gone, Miss Phinney?” Jed’s voice startles her, and she turns to find him sitting with his back to the wall, his own mug held in hand.  He gives her an apologetic smile.  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It would take a great deal more than that to scare me, Dr. Foster.”  She wonders again at how easy this has become, their friendship.  Perhaps, she thinks, it is the natural confluence of being two of the most stable people in residence on the staff.  And isn’t that a piteous statement.  “I was thinking of what fall smells like, feels like, back home.”

“Boston in the fall is quite beautiful.”  His words surprise her, and she finds herself moving to sit next to him on the ground.  He smirks.  “I sailed for Paris from Boston when I went, stopped in at Harvard first for a few lectures.  It was fall then, and I recall how colorful a riot those leaves were.”

She forgets, sometimes, how far afield he’s travel.  So much further than her, who had not left New England before coming here.  “And what of your home?  Is it rather like this?”

Jed shakes his head, his own gaze going wistful.  “No.  No, our land is rural.  We’re quite a ways from any large city like this.”  There’s a soft fondness there that she’s not used to.  Perhaps because his only other talk of home related to his mother and his brother and the untenable nature of his family situation.  “We farmed a few things, but much of it tobacco.  This time of year, the harvest would be brought in and smoke cured in the barns.  Between that and the hogs slaughtered to put up hams, the air is always hazy, and smells of smoking meat.  I always remember as a boy that it made me hungry.”

It’s a visceral thing, his words, and she smiles.  What must that boy have been like, before…?

“There’s a smell to leaves, when they fall and get damp.  And if they’re dry enough, we’d burn them and plow the ashes into our fields.”  She’s wistful too, now.  “And we’d tap the sugar maples for sap, and boil it down for syrup.  Cooking syrup smells so good, and if we had a good yield, we’d have in on these fresh baked biscuits my mother would make.”  She hasn’t thought of that in years, not since her mother’s death, and then her fathers.  She has the recipe, safely stored with her other things, in the attic at Ned’s.

Jed makes a soft noise, appreciative.  And then they just sit.  It can’t be more than five minutes, or at a stretch ten, before she hears Emma Green’s voice.  “Nurse Mary?  Hello?”

The sigh that escapes them both is resigned.  Another day of bloody work, the spell of the early hour broken as the fog itself starts to dissipate in response to the sun.  Jed rises and then offers her his hand, helping her up.  As she’s turning to go, he stops her.  “Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow, Mary?”

Emma’s voice calls again, closer this time.  She gives his hand one last squeeze.  “Perhaps, Jed.  Perhaps.”


End file.
